Often called a doyenne of Scottish literature, she wrote more than 90 books of historical and science fiction, travel writing and autobiography.

Her best work is thought to be The Corn King and the Spring Queen (1931), which treats three different societies, including a wholly fictional one, and explores themes of sexuality that were daring in her day.

[9] However, several clergymen, including the Archbishop of York, were angered by the book's lack of emphasis on Christianity, while other right-wing authors objected to a perceived sympathy with the Soviet Union.

The Conservative writer Arnold Lunn wrote a lengthy attack on the book in the English Review,[10] which contributed to its commercial failure.

[11] She approached first her friend Victor Gollancz, who flatly turned her down, observing that "publication of the book would cause a real outcry."

On publication it was universally despised for its depiction of rape, free love and abortion that "alienated readers on the left and horrified those on the political right.

"[12] In 2005, files from the National Archives revealed that the British government had considered prosecuting the publishers of We Have Been Warned, but ultimately decided not to do so.

[14] In it she defended the right of the left-wing journalist H. N. Brailsford to criticise the Moscow Trials, which had caused controversy on the British left at the time.

She frequently visited Africa, especially Botswana, where she was made a sort of tribal mother (Mmarona) to the baKgatla people.

[17] Her later works included further historical novels: The Bull Calves (1947) about the Jacobite rising of 1745 and The Young Alexander the Great (1960).

She also turned to fantasy, such as Graeme and the Dragon (1954, Graeme Mitchison being a grandson through Denis), science fiction such as Memoirs of a Spacewoman (1962) and Solution Three (1975), fantasy such as the humorous Arthurian novel To the Chapel Perilous (1955), non-fiction such as African Heroes (1968), and also children's novels, poetry, travel and a three-volume autobiography.

[19] An active anti-fascist, Mitchison travelled to Austria, where she undertook the risky task of smuggling documents and left-wing refugees out of the country.

She supported the Scottish National Party candidate, William Power in the parliamentary by-election for the Argyllshire constituency in 1940.

The paintings acquired included works by Joan Eardley, Robin Philipson, Anne Redpath and William MacTaggart.

[24] Mitchison was a vocal campaigner for women's rights, advocating birth control, and was elected a Life Fellow of the Eugenics Society in 1925 before leaving in objection to the group's politics.

She was a principal investor in the Partisan Coffee House, a meeting place for the New Left off Soho Square, which functioned in 1958–1962.

He became a Queen's Counsel, then a Labour politician, and eventually (on 5 October 1964) a life peer as Baron Mitchison of Carradale in the County of Argyll, on retirement for his political work.

After some years they both agreed to an open marriage, in which they entered into several other relationships that were conducted with dignity and described with humour.

Her first serious lover was the Oxford classicist Theodore Wade-Gery, whose scholarship she drew on in writing her historical novels.

She wrote him love poems and missed him greatly after he broke off the relationship, considering it incompatible with his marriage to another woman in 1928.

The house was frequented by people of all sorts: lords, ladies, politicians, writers, neighbours, fishermen and farmers.